Julian of Norwich

Some personal details

Name- Julian of Norwich, Lady Julian of Norwich
Birth -8 November 1342(Norfolk)
Death -8 May 1416 (aged 73) (Norwich)

A brief history about Julian of Norwich
As the history is a treasure trove with interesting and fascinating descriptions of the people, who has done a great service to the world, unfortunately some great people were not written or mentioned anywhere, yet their great devotion and the service can be enjoyed even today. Julian of Norwich was one such character; fortunately the world has many important facts and information about this wonderful person,
The Christian church will never forget the name of this great anchoress, who was born in Norfolk in 1342 and died in Norwich in 1416. Julian has been venerated in the Anglican and Lutheran chapters, as one of their most important mystics. Though her writings have done a great deal of impact on the Christianity, Roman Catholic Church did not give her full recognition.
The Christian world has a little knowledge about this great lady. Even her name was not known even today. The name “Julian” has been given to her, because her living place or the cell was fixed to the wall of the famous church, the St. Julian in Norwich. Her date of birth and other details are merely suggested and it is believed that she was from a wealthy family of the city. There was a plague in her city, and lots of people had to die as a result of a deadly outbreak of a certain disease. Some scholars argue that Julian was an orphan. They further argue that she had to become an anchoress as a result of those hardships.
The historical event was started, when she was about 30 years old, she was suffering from a certain illness and it was very critical. Julian was at her death bed with only god beside her as her sole survivor. On her death bed, she was lucky enough to have a series vision of the holy Jesus. She was miraculously recovered from her death bed. According to most of the historians, it was the start of her life as a person, who is fully devoted to the religion. Julian was an educated woman, and she decides to record those visions in her words. As she had engaged in certain other issues, she was not able to finish some of her writings. She wrote one of the texts, which is named as “Revelation of divine Love”. It has 25 chapters and 11000 words long. It has been recognized as the longest literary work, which is done in English language by a woman. No other woman has done such a long work prior to her, so it was the first work of female writer in the English language.

The divine vision and the writings had given her enough strength and the courage to do more of her writings after 20 or 30 years later Julian decided to perform her next duty towards her survivor as well as to the entire Christian world. The year can be roughly identified as 1390, when she started to compose her long text about her visions. She wanted to convey the meanings of her visions to the world. She devoted her total energy to convey the message of the god to the world. It was popularly known as the “Long Text”. This book has 86 chapters, and there are more than 64000 words.
Those literary works and her serene life, has done a great deal on her social image. The people began to identify her as spiritual authority, and her fame had spread throughout the England. There is another nice example to prove her popularity in the Christian world, as One of the famous women of that time Margret Kempe, the famous English mystic, who wrote the first known autobiography in English language, went to Norwich in 1414 in order to meet Julian.
She was helped by several in her literary work. It has been identified Adam Easton, the Benedictine and Cardinal of Norwich, as her spiritual adviser and the director of her “Long Text”

Some facts about her literary work in the Christians faith

Her first text, which is popular as the short text was in a manuscript and it was copied into Amherst manuscript in the middle of the 15th century. It was copied from the original writings of Julian. At that time she was living and the writer took a great care to reproduce the original details in her manuscript. The short text had not got much attention. The short text was edited recently. It took place in 1911.
The Long Text or the longest work has earned more attention than the initial work. Even though it was a great work, it had not been circulated in the medieval England. The historians found one of the remaining manuscripts of her great work. It was written in the 15th century, but her name was not mentioned as the writer of the book. It was not the complete work of Julian, as they were able to find only a portion of the long text.
Later, several manuscripts of The Long Text have appeared, and they can be out into 2 categories as they are slightly different from the facts and the way of writing. The Brigittine Long Text manuscript is there and it was composed in the Antwerp region. Now it is known as the Paris Manuscript. The next type is found in 2 manuscripts, which can be seen in the Slone collection of the British Library.
The first printed version of the Revaluation was released in 1670, and it was done by Benedictine Serenus Creassy. As it was highly admired by the religious as well as the scholars of the time, they had to reprint it in 1843, 1864 and also in 1902. The new edition was published in 1877, and it took an increased popularity in the society. The name of the Julian had begun to become more and more popular after the release of the version in 1901. It was done by Grace Warrack, and she wrote a lot about the life and the work of Julian. As a result of those appreciations, Julian has been recognized as one of the highly respected and important mystics of the England. The modern people have understood the in-depth description of the divine love.
The book has been translated to the following languages, as the high popularity of the book in the Christian world. • French (five times),
• German (four times),
• Italian,
• Finnish,
• Norwegian,
• Swedish, Danish,
• Dutch,
• Catalan, Greek
• Russian.

Her idea about the god and the world This wonderful and highly recognized religious character lived in a period of social unrest and in a very primitive recognition of the humanity. There was unrest everywhere and also various diseases, but she was a person with optimistic heart and she spoke the love of the god and his will to serve the world. According to her diseases and the other hardships are not the punishments of the god, but the natural activities of the human world. Those days majority used to believe in an extremely different way from Julian even the scholars of that period. They believed that the god punishes the wicked and the bad people in many ways. Julian was different, as she believed that the god wanted to help all the people in the world. She had the idea of the reality, which did not be very common among the people of her time. Her ideas and the theories were different from the others, but the government did not care for her attitudes and let her to practice her own theology.

The modern recognition of her devotion and religious service to the world
The great literary work and the devotion to the service for the god have turned Julian into a venerated figure in the hearts of the Christens. There is a week long celebration in her birth place to commemorate the great service of this person. There are many activities and workshops in order to educate the people about the great service of Julian; she has been recognized as cultural, spiritual and literary figure in the society.